Tortured
by TheBookJumper
Summary: Annie is captured and tortured while Auggie tries frantically to rescue her before it's too late. Set before the explosion that kills Jai and moves into AU from there. WARNING: graphic depictions of torture ahead. If someone wants me to up the rating - I will, just ask.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hey everyone! This is my first attempt at FanFic. I just discovered this show a few weeks ago, and I've become slightly obsessed with it. I am not sure how often I will be able to post due to a demanding school life, but I will do my best to make it at least every two weeks. Please don't come after me with pitchforks if I'm late.**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing. I wish I had an Auggie.**

"Annie! We're coming for you. I'm coming for you. I'm getting you out of there as soon as possible. Please, be strong."

She could hear the desperation in her best friend's voice, currently loud and clear in her head. It was good to know that the tech in her ear was still functional despite the blow she took earlier that knocked her out cold. Plus, that voice would always comfort her. She needed that comfort now more than ever as her captor leaned over her, smiling viciously down into her face.

"This is going to be fun. I've never had the pleasure of entertaining a CIA agent before." Did she detect a Russian accent? He thrust one fist into her hair, pulled her head up off the cold, cement floor, and smashed it back into the ground. She could actually feel her brain sloshing back and forth in her skull. A sticky wetness began to pool under her head, too, and she let out a low groan from the pain.

"Annie? Are you okay? Oh, _God_. Annie?" Auggie's voice filtered through the pain.

Cringing, Annie realized the two-way nature of the ear bud meant Auggie was going to hear everything that happened to her from here on out. He was going to listen as she was tortured - he would never stop listening to the feed no matter how gruesome it got, because he always had her back. At this realization, the relief she'd felt knowing she was still connected to Langley completely dissipated, and she began wishing that the earlier scuffle had damaged the radio.

Her captor continued to taunt her, but she paid no attention to what he was actually saying, choosing instead to take stock of her current predicament and outline her options. She wasn't sure where she was being held, so she couldn't communicate that intel to Auggie; she didn't know who grabbed her or why, so she couldn't pick a game plan of what to say and what not to say. The only thing she could do now was to minimize the damage to Auggie and make sure whoever had her knew she wouldn't be cooperating. Maybe if she got him angry, he'd make a mistake and say something Auggie could use. She resolved that she would not be making any noises of pain. She knew that it would drive her insane, literally, to sit there and listen to the sounds of Auggie being tortured and be completely unable to do something. She would not do that to him.

"Annie, I'm so sorry. Please hang in there."

"We're going to start out easy. What were you doing in Moscow?" Ah, so he _was_ Russian. FSB?

"Sightseeing."

At her response, he tightened his grip on her hair and with his other hand he began squeezing her windpipe. "You will talk. Or I will get creative." Her vision began to blur and she could feel her heartbeat pounding in her skull. Right at the point where she was sure she was going to pass out, she felt him release. "What were you doing in Moscow?"

"I was going to meet my boyfriend and we were going to tour the Kremlin and Red Square." He backhanded her so hard that the noise reverberated off the wall and lights flashed behind her eyes. Instead of crying out, she held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

He continued to interrogate her, punctuating each of her answers with a punch or a kick. Her body burned and throbbed all over. Whether it had continued for hours or just a few minutes, she wasn't sure. Each hit had her digging her fingernails into her palms, trying to refocus the pain and help her concentrate on not making any noise. With each thump, Auggie whispered to her that she was going to be okay, that help was coming.

"These are the easy questions. It's only going to get more difficult for you from here." He hit her again. "Let's make this a little more interesting, shall we?" At this, he met her gaze and there was a psychotic glint in his eyes that told her he didn't really care about her answers; he was just enjoying this. He stood up from his position where he had been straddling her chest, and started moving toward the door. He looked back down at her and laughed. "Don't go anywhere." He tapped on the heavy steel door, and it began opening from the outside. So much for that being a possible avenue of escape. As he slipped through the door and it closed, Annie breathed a sigh of relief. At least she wouldn't get hit for a few minutes.

"Auggie?"

"Annie! Oh thank God. I'm working as fast as I can. I should have people –"

"Auggie!" She cut him off. "Listen to me. I need you to do me a favor."

"Anything."

"I need you to turn off the comms but keep them recording. I need to know you're not listening."

"Anything but that."

"Auggie. I need you to focus on getting a team out here. Listening to what's going on with me will just distract you and slow you down. I will be fine." The lie rolled off her tongue smoothly. She knew it was going to get a lot worse for her before the team got there. Her plan to get her captor to slip up and reveal information they could use meant that she was going to be in a world of hurt.

"No, Annie. I'm not leaving you all alone in this. I will be with you every step of the way. I have your GPS coordinates from the comm. I've developed an extraction plan, and we're implementing it now. Jai should be there soon. I just need you to hold on."

"It's okay. _Please_ , Auggie. I need you to stop listening."

"Absolutely not."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Luckily my schedule hasn't been insanely busy this week, so I'm able to get this chapter out today. Let me know what you think!**

 **Disclaimer: Not my characters. I just like to play with them a bit.**

"Absolutely not." Auggie couldn't understand why Annie would try to shut him out now, when her life was in danger and she needed him the most. He needed her to know that he was going to bring her home, that everything was going to be okay. He knew she needed the reassurances. She had to be scared, right? So why was she trying to get him to leave her? That would never happen so long as he was breathing.

"Walker, I'm not abandoning you. I'm here, and I'm getting you out." He heard her take a shuddering breath. He could hear some scuffling noises, and a faint whimper. She was in pain. "Breathe. Deep breaths, Annie. In and out." He struggled to keep his voice calm.

He pressed mute so Annie couldn't hear him and began speaking to Jai who was on the ground in Russia with a tactical team trying to get to Annie's location. "Jai – I need you to be there 20 minutes ago. Where are you?"

"You don't think I know that? We're trying to get there. Our convoy is about half an hour away from her location."

"Make it 15."

A bone-weary sigh ripped from his chest and he put his head in his hands, gently pulling at his shaggy brown hair. He tried to take the advice he had just given his best friend – breathe in, breathe out. Helpless. That's what he was feeling. He hadn't felt this pathetically helpless since just after the accident that had taken his eyesight and he'd been forced to relearn even the simplest of tasks, like how to pick out clothing to wear for the day or how to get the toothpaste on his toothbrush in the mornings. Sitting there, listening to Annie's ragged breaths each time that man hit her, he felt every bit as helpless as he had then. What he wouldn't give to be there with Jai, helping to rescue Annie. At least then he'd be doing something productive.

Cradling his head in his hands and lost in his thoughts, he didn't hear the faint jingling of the necklace which would've announced the newcomer's presence into his office. Instead, she lay a hand on his shoulder causing him to jump slightly. When she apologized for startling him, Auggie tried to look to where the voice had come, hoping he was mostly meeting her eyes.

"Joan." His voice cracked while trying to acknowledge her presence.

"I need a status update, Auggie." She tried to keep her voice soft, yet firm, allowing no room for anything other than compliance.

"Jai says the tac team is half an hour from her. We have no information about how heavily guarded the building is where they're keeping her, how they found out about her, or which agency they are affiliated with."

"And Annie?"

"They have an interrogator with her. So far he's been asking who she is, why she's there, trying to get her to confirm she works for the CIA, trying to get her plans. Every answer she gives is followed by another loud thump. I can only imagine what that means." His voice broke a little at the end, and Joan rubbed a small circle on his shoulder, attempting to lend him a little bit of comfort.

"She's a good agent, Auggie. She won't break and we'll get her soon. We'll have medical transport standing by after extraction, and they'll make sure she's taken care of. She's coming home."

"She hasn't screamed, Joan. Not once. Not even when I heard a distinct cracking noise." A feeling of dread settled low in his stomach and slowly spread throughout. Not screaming when you were in pain meant you were internalizing. It was a tactic to maintain control, but it meant frustrating the torturer which could lead to worse injuries and rapid escalation. It also meant that she wasn't dealing with the pain in real time, so she was mentally weakening herself.

Joan knew exactly the fears coursing through Auggie's head; all handlers knew what it meant to the likelihood of bringing an operative home safely if they didn't give the sadistic personality torturing them what he wanted: a reaction. Most of the people who used enhanced interrogation techniques enjoyed inflicting that pain, and if they didn't get a little screaming for their trouble, they spiraled. While Joan knew the technique, she suspected that the reasons Annie chose to employ it in this situation had less with wanting to control the interrogation and more with sparing the feelings of shaggy-haired, ex-Special Forces man sitting in front of her. The one whose face already showed complete devastation. She also knew it would do no good to tell him of those suspicions.

"I know you're worried, Auggie. I'm worried, too. Jai is on the way, and he's got a great tac team with him. I know we don't have all the intel we need to guarantee the extraction is a success, and I know how you feel about Jai, but I trust my people to get this done properly." With that, she squeezed his shoulder one more time and said, "Get back to taking care of our girl."

Auggie covered Joan's hand with his own and gently squeezed it, thanking her for her support wordlessly. Steeling himself, he turned back to Annie's earbud.

"Still there, Walker?"

"Yes. You shouldn't be." She sounded out of breath. Auggie could only hope it was from trying to escape, or anything other than a collapsed lung, really.

"Confirmed with Jai that he's about half an hour away. More like 25 minutes at this point. He's got a tactical team and He. Will. Get. You. Out."

"Auggie –"

"Stop, Annie. I'm not going anywhere."

Her next reply made his blood run cold. "He's coming back." The sound of metal scraping against concrete signaled the return of Annie's tormentor.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey everyone! So, this took a little longer than last time because school work has picked up. But, this chapter is longer than the others, too, so it's kind of a trade-off! Thank you to everyone who reviewed - I really appreciate them! Also, a big welcome to all my new followers.**

 **As always, I don't own Covert Affairs, just my ideas.**

Annie rolled herself over toward the sound from her position on the floor just in time to see the slightly crazed smile of the man who had spent the last hour or more laying blows on her body. The sun glowing through the window seemed to light up his pale skin and give a dangerous glint to his light-colored eyes. Were they blue or green? She couldn't tell from this far away, but she was determined to memorize his face so that she could hunt him down when she made it out of this. _If_ she made it out of this. If she didn't, she was going to make damn sure that there was enough information on the recording from her earbud that the CIA would be able to find them, determine their end goal, and stop it.

He knelt alongside her prone body and met her gaze as he lifted his hand to her face. She flinched away, expecting him to smack her across the face again. This time, though, he gently ran his fingers along her forehead, brushing a strand of her hair back behind her ear. "I'm back now, золотая. Did you miss me?"

The brief reprieve had given her time to collect herself and get her head in the game. She recognized the pet name he used for her. Confirmed. He's Russian. She had to stop herself from outwardly smiling – she was starting to get answers. She kept silent in case her voice were to give anything away. Plus, she was having trouble breathing, so keeping silent also served the added purpose of conserving breath while pissing him off. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she recognized that she didn't want Auggie to hear her weakness in her voice. He was so attuned to voices that she knew he would hear the slightest hitch in her speech.

"I know you did. But it's okay. I brought us toys to play with." She had been so wrapped up in watching his face that she didn't notice the dull thud of a bag being dropped when he'd come in. Now, he waived his arm at the door, and another man in a black ski mask entered carrying a metal chair. He placed it into the center of the room and disappeared through the door as quickly as he'd come.

The blue (green? she still couldn't tell) eyes crinkled at the edges as he gave her the same demented smile he had when he first returned to the room. Moving so fast she didn't see it, he curled his fingers into her hair and lifted her using that hold. He dragged her across the room by her hair, with her feet scrambling below her to alleviate some of the pain, until she bumped into the chair. He twisted his hand in her hair, forcing her head to turn, and the rest of her body to turn with it. He jerked her head up until she was finally sitting in the chair. Then, he returned for the bag and began rummaging through it. He pulled out some rope and came back to Annie, the rope in one hand and the bag in the other. This time when he set the bag on the floor, she could hear the noise of metal clinking together, the sound dulled by the canvas of the bag.

He came to stand behind her. He grabbed her right arm, pulled it over the back of the chair, repeated the motion with her left, and began winding the rope around her wrists and through the metal rungs that made up the back of the chair. He worked the rope from her wrists up to her elbows, alternating it through the chair, and finally wrapped the rope twice around her ribcage, just under her breasts. He pulled the rope tight against her and tied it off with a practiced knot. As her ribcage constricted painfully, she tried to suck in a breath, but the little she could breathe came in shakily and the ropes made it so her lungs couldn't expand fully even in their best condition. She unintentionally let out a tiny whimper of pain and panic. She immediately squeezed her lips together to prevent another sound escaping, and hoped Auggie had been distracted with something else at that point.

"Annie? Please let me know you're still okay. You haven't been this quiet since I've met you. I'm getting nervous here." Of course she wasn't that lucky. She knew he was trying to relieve some of the tension by joking, but his voice sounded so hollow and defeated, it only made her feel worse about what this was doing to him. She wanted to give him some reassurance. Even if she _wasn't_ okay, she needed him to think she was. She needed him to not be panicked, to not think she was weak.

She met those strange eyes, took as deep of a breath as she could, and kept her voice even. "Normally when a man ties me up, I make him at least take me to dinner first." She noticed his eyes harden immediately, losing all trace of the smile that had previously marked his features. Hopefully the raspy quality that belied her inability to take a full breath wasn't obvious in her statement. She didn't think it had come across, but she wasn't sure. The last thing she needed was her captor to realize how injured she was. _Or for Auggie to_ , her mind added.

"I see that our last session wasn't as effective as I'd hoped. I suppose now we'll start again." He knelt on the ground in front of her and began searching through the bag at his side. His long, blonde hair fell into his eyes as his head tilted down further. Finally, his hands emerged, clutching a hunting knife. The gleam of excitement was back on his face when he refocused on her. He twirled the hilt of the knife in his hand while balancing the tip of the blade on a finger of his other hand, and a smile slowly spread across his face. "What is a CIA agent doing in Moscow?"

"I told you. I was sightseeing. And what do you mean CIA? That's American, right? I'm Canadian. Check my passport, please!" She tried to let a little bit of panic creep into her voice to try and sell the story one last time. If he didn't buy it, and she was sure he wouldn't, she was going to switch gears and use a new tactic: piss him off until he makes a mistake.

An overdramatic sigh came from his mouth as he took the blade and pressed the sharp tip of it into her temple. "I wanted you to stop lying to me, золотая. I did not want to hurt your beautiful face or body. But you leave me no choice." He pressed harder and sliced down her cheek. She closed her eyes against the pain, and refused to make any noise. Here's hoping angering him would get her some more information.

She squared her shoulders, as much as she could with how she was tied, took another shallow breath, and met his gaze with a fiery one of her own. "Do you really think that knife scares me? Come on. There must be other men out there," she tilted her head toward the door, "who can do a better job at interrogation than you. What? 5, 10, 15, 20 others?" His eyes dilated when she said 15 – he recognized that as the answer to her question. Now, hopefully Auggie would catch what she was trying to tell him. She counted the words of her next sentence carefully. "Bring one of them in and see if one of them has what it takes." 15 words. 15 men. Come on, Auggie. If you feel like you have to stay with me through this, I'm going to give you as much intel as I can. She flinched as her captor sliced across her forehead in anger.

"15 guys. I hear you, Annie. I'll tell Jai. You did great – that's plenty of intel. Stop making him mad. _Please,_ Annie, don't give him a reason to hurt you more." She let out a shaky breath in relief, then tried to pull in another round of oxygen, but felt like she got significantly less this time. A bead of blood trailed from the cut of her forehead to the corner of her eye, followed the curve of her nose down, and wet her lips. The taste of metal was harsh in her mouth.

She pleaded with Auggie to stop listening, but made sure it could be interpreted as her begging for the torture to stop. "Please stop now. Please, please, stop." She knew Auggie would understand her. He always did. The smile curled back around her torturer's lips and he leaned toward her with the knife still in his hand. With his other hand, he pulled the neck of her long-sleeved t-shirt forward, and used the knife to cut the fabric. Only when her shirt was cut all the way down the center did he move away from her, leaving her torso exposed to him; her only covering that remained was her black, padded bra.

"I will never leave you, Annie. Ever. Now, just say as little as possible and don't make him angry. Jai and his team will be there soon. 3 minutes. Hold on, Annie."

"I will only stop when you tell me what I need to know, золотая. Please let me stop hurting you." He ran his thumb across her forehead, smearing the blood trail, and pushed his hand gently back into her hair. "It really would be such a shame to mar this perfect body of yours."

"I'm sorry. If you want to take my clothes off, you _definitely_ need to buy me dinner first." As the pain of the knife seared across her abdomen, she squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the shaggy brown hair and expressive, yet unseeing, chocolate eyes she wanted to get back to. She felt her determination flare up.

Let the games begin.

 **A/N 2: Hope you liked this chapter. Just FYI -** **золотая means "golden" and is a pet name in Russian (or so my research tells me). If this is wrong, or if it should be a different form of the word, let me know and I'll fix it!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I am so sorry, everyone! Between technical problems and school work exploding, it has been entirely too long since I've been able to work on this story. I also had a little bit of a dilemma about where to go with this story. I had two storylines in my head, and picking between the two was incredibly difficult. BUT - I've finally made my decision and I've finished this chapter. Now that Finals are over, I should have much more time to devote to writing. Also, I'm doing a little editing/updating to the previous chapters, so be on the lookout - nothing major, just some formatting stuff.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Covert Affairs, I do not own any of the characters. This makes me insanely sad.**

 **Confession #1: I binge-watched the first four seasons of Covert Affairs in 5 days.**

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"I'm sorry. If you want to take my clothes off, you _definitely_ need to buy me dinner first."

Auggie would have laughed at Annie's flippant taunt to her captor in any other situation, but he could hear the breathless quality of her voice and it terrified him. It was faint, and probably wouldn't have been picked up by anyone else, but he wasn't just anyone else. He was her best friend, and he knew her voice better than he knew the back of his hand. So to speak. A small smirk played its way across his face as the thought crossed his mind, imagining Annie's reaction to it. He could almost feel her fingers curling around his forearm as she squeezed him in faux exasperation, and could almost hear her trying to hold back her amusement as she whispered, "Groan. Eye roll." He'd have to remember that joke for when she got back; it meant he'd get to hear her laughter which was growing quickly to be one of his favorite sounds in the world. It thrilled him to give her a moment of lightheartedness when her world was filled with so much drama that it would make for a great TV show if it wasn't all classified.

He heard her level another barb at her tormenter followed immediately by a shaky inhale and the smirk immediately left his face as he felt anger and fear boil over. How could she taunt him when he specifically asked her to not piss the man off? She was obviously hurt. All she had to do was play along for three minutes until Jai could get to her and get her out. It almost seemed like she was deliberately trying to anger the man, and get him to inflict more pain on her. He let out another heavy sigh – probably his hundredth one in the six hours since Annie had been abducted.

"Dammit, Annie. Stop it. Jai will be there in three minutes to get you out. Please don't give him any more reason to hurt you. _Please_."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath, and hit the mute button again. He could still hear her, but she couldn't hear anything going on from his end. Auggie slid his hand softly across his desk until it came in contact with hard plastic, and he gripped the receiver of his desk phone and lifted it to his ear. He instructed his computer to dial Eric Barber. Luckily for Eric's continued health, he picked up on the second ring.

"Barber? Where the hell are you?"

"I'm down in the cafeteria grabbing us snacks and coffee so we can keep going."

"You're supposed to be here coordinating with the medical team so that they are on site the minute Jai's tactical team gets Annie out of the building."

"They're all set, Auggie. I swear. I wouldn't have left if everything wasn't in place for Annie." There was a slight pause and then Barber mumbled something so quietly, Auggie was sure he wasn't supposed to have heard it. "I don't have a death wish."

"Did you tell them about the possible broken bones and collapsed lung? I can hear her voice getting worse, and I'm pretty sure I'm right about the lung. If that bastard would leave the room again, I could find out for sure, but I think it's pretty damn likely. She's probably going to have extensive bruising, cuts, maybe other internal bleeding.."

"AUGGIE! Stop. They know. Everyone knows. Of course it's all set up. She's my friend, too. I'm paying now and I'll be back in two minutes. Just in time for her miraculous saving." The audible click told Auggie that Barber had hung up on him.

He took a deep breath, exhaled, and turned back to listening in on Annie. He knew he was being unreasonable with Barber, and taking his stress of the situation out on his Tech Ops subordinate, but he couldn't help it. He was so frustrated and angry and he had no outlet for it. He couldn't abandon his post when Annie needed him, even if she wouldn't admit it.

He unmuted his comm at the same time he heard a quiet hiss of pain come across from Annie. The bastard had done something else to hurt her. He dug his fingernails into his palms in an effort to remain calm as he whispered to Annie to hold on just a little longer. Her response was to antagonize the man some more.

He checked his watch and switched over to the feed with Jai and the tactical team. They had arrived at the location pinging from the GPS in Annie's headset. He sent up a small thank you to whomever was looking out for them that the communication earbud was still functioning even after the kidnapping and subsequent torture. Jai relayed the exact location of the building and Auggie pulled up the blueprints. It was weird, but for some reason Annie's headset wasn't pinging from exactly where Jai was located. It was there, but it her GPS coordinates were not pinned down as precisely as were Jai's even though they both had the same model earbud; hers was reading the location within 200 yards, but Jai's was narrowed down to only 25 yards. Consequently, he had to rely on Jai that this was the only building in which they could be holding Annie anywhere in the vicinity. Apparently all the others were bustling with civilians, but this one was empty with a sign on the door saying it was for lease.

Auggie waited for the Jai's Tac Team to get geared up to breach the building, and when everyone had their comms in, he gave them a brief description of the layout, making sure he cited any rooms that had hidden entrances or multiple exits. Then he sat back and listened as the team developed their strategy for Annie's retrieval.

They did a thermal scan of the building and confirmed that there were multiple heat signatures inside and moving around. There were two people on each floor including the basement and the roof; the only anomaly was the third floor which displayed seven heat signatures. That had to be where they were holding Annie.

Their strategy in place, Jai informed Auggie that the team was getting ready to move. He kept his attention on this line until he heard Jai's order to the men, "Go!" Then he switched back to Annie.

"Annie, Jai is on site and the team is entering the building. It looks like you're on the third floor, so it may take a couple of minutes to get to you, but they will get to you. They're coming. Just hold on a little longer." He could almost hear the smugness in her voice when she responded to whatever question the man holding her had posed this time.

Auggie visibly flinched as Barber entered the Tech Ops room at the same time a loud smack came across Annie's comm. Anger coursed through his system, and he fisted his hands in his hair. He should be there with Jai. It should be him that gets to be Annie's rescuer, not that smarmy, smug jackass. If it weren't for his damn blindness, he would be lifting her into his arms and carrying her from the building. He would be able to see the damage that man did to his best friend. He would be able to see for himself he extent of her wounds.

He would be able to see the fear in the man's eyes as Auggie paid him back for every mark left on Annie's body.

He was so caught up in his retribution-filled daydream that he didn't hear Jai's voice come across the radio. It wasn't until Barber screamed, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S NOT THERE?!" that Auggie realized he had missed something crucial.

"We have subdued all of the people in the building, and all of the heat signatures have been accounted for. Annie is not one of them. She's not here."

The sound that erupted from Auggie was not one he had ever made before. It was the sound of desperation, anger, and terror all rolled into one. It was the sound of a man realizing he had never truly felt helpless before - not until Annie was in danger and he had no idea where she was.

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 **A/N: *ducks* R &R please!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: See? I told you I was trying to be better about updating more regularly now that exam season is over. This is the longest chapter yet! ENJOY!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Covert Affairs or any of their characters. I just like to play with them a bit.**

 **Confession #2: I've shipped Walkerson from Episode 1.**

* * *

After a good ten minutes had passed, Annie realized the help she expected wasn't coming, and fear settled in the pit of her stomach. She had been moving her plan along faster than normal in anticipation of her forthcoming rescue, but now she was left with no tactical team and an overly pissed-off sadist with a knife. A knife and whatever-the-hell else was in that bag. She was definitely in trouble now; no backup, no rescue, and no plan. Annie desperately tried to quell the fear so she could think straight.

What the hell had happened? She had always been able to depend on Auggie to not lie to her. He would never tell her help was on its way unless he was sure it was coming. He had sounded sure, so something must have gone sideways. What had he said? _Jai is entering the building_. The only possible explanation for the team making a move on a building and not finding her is that they had the wrong building. Somehow the faction holding her had masked her location so well that not even Auggie had picked up on it. Speaking of Auggie, where the hell was he? She hadn't heard his voice in fifteen minutes or more.

 _Maybe he finally stopped listening in._ Even as she thought it, she knew she wasn't that lucky. Auggie was determined to ride this out with her, no matter how much she begged. There was no way he was gone now, just when her rescue had gone south and her already precarious situation worsened. But he hadn't even bothered to inform her that she was alone; that no one was coming for her. Anger replaced the fear held low in her stomach, and she clung to it with white knuckles, using it to pull her mind back into focus and back into the game. So what if she was mad at Auggie? She could redirect that feeling to the monster before her for now.

"Okay, Max. Why don't we exchange some information here? You obviously know that I'm CIA. You tell me how the FSB found out about my operation in Moscow, and I'll tell you which one of your men is an informant to the CIA."

"None of my men would work with the CIA." He punctuated his point with another quick slash to Annie's abdomen. "And why are you calling me Max?"

"You never properly introduced yourself, but you're obviously the main interrogator for this faction of the FSB. From what I know of your organization, you could only be Maksim." It was a complete bluff. She had no idea who he was, but Maksim was always at the top of the list for popular Russian names, so if she was going to take a shot in the dark to throw, it was going to be with Maksim. If she got it right, she immediately gained the upper-hand because he would assume she knew about their operation, and potentially even believe her story about the FSB mole. If she was wrong, she could spin it to her advantage still, alluding to the idea his bosses planned on violently discharging him from service and replacing him. It would be a harder sell, but it would at least plant a little doubt in his mind about his status. Either option was a win for her, and would give her more intel than she had two minutes ago.

She saw terror flicker over his face briefly and she knew she had him. She made a mental note to send a thank-you note to Elle over at the Russian desk for sending that memo through about most popular names.

"So, Maksim, exactly how did you learn of my presence in Russia?"

"You don't ask the questions here. I do." With that response she recognized that the majority of her assumptions were true. He did not deny he was part of the FSB, which narrowed the field of potential players. His name was Maksim, and he was obviously highly regarded if he was the main interrogator of this cell of operations for the FSB. He was sure of himself, perhaps overly confident, which she could definitely use to her advantage.

He moved behind her again. She felt his hand touch her left shoulder and trail his fingers down her arm slowly. When his touch reached her palm, he traced his thumb and forefinger over her pinky finger, gently caressing it. Leaning over her, he breathed his next question into her ear: "What does the CIA know about our operation?"

"Enough."

He let out a hollow chuckle in response, grabbed her finger in his fist and yanked it to the side. She felt, rather than heard, the telltale crack. Then came the almost-blinding pain. She bit her tongue to keep from crying out, refusing to give him the satisfaction. Refusing to let Auggie hear her pain, if he was even still there.

She could picture Auggie sitting at his desk, surrounded by his glass walls, typing furiously at his computer while listening to every sound she made, scrutinizing her voice, breathing patterns, anything he could hear to judge whether she was going to make it out of this one. She knew he was doing everything he could to find her real location, to get her out and back home safely even if he wasn't speaking in her ear right now.

She tried to imagine being in his chair, listening to some madman torture him and being halfway across the world, unable to make it stop. That thought alone almost made her lose her sanity. Add to it the fact that the tactical team was sent to the wrong location, and she suddenly knew why she hadn't heard from him since. She knew Auggie better than anyone else at the Agency, just like he knew her. It was what made them a great team; their ability to read the other's mind from across the globe let them work together seamlessly. This ability also told her the truth behind her realization. Auggie felt responsible. She knew it as surely as the she knew the exact shade of chocolate brown that made up the outer rim of his sightless eyes. He thought it was his fault. All the frustration she felt for him not communicating with her vanished. She had to get out of this for him.

"Answer the question."

Hearing Maksim's voice pulled her thoughts from Auggie back to her present. His fingers curled around her ring finger on her left hand, poised to break it, too.

She drew another weak breath into her lungs, reminding herself to breathe slow and shallow. She could feel the lack of oxygen starting to mess with her mind, loosening her tongue. She had no intention of revealing what came out of her mouth next, and she could visualize herself trying to scrape the words back to her as they rolled off of her tongue.

"Look, I know how interrogation works. You put your target into a threatening environment, level threats at him or her to try and weaken them psychologically, and then escalate to methods of physical persuasion if the threats don't work. We got to that step quickly. You assume I know this because of my affiliation with the CIA, but you're wrong. And the reason you're wrong is the reason you won't get any information from me. I was an Army brat. I lived in military bases my whole life. Do you know what there is to do on a military base for a twelve-year-old? Not much. Do you know what that environment does to some of those kids? It turns them into little sadists, just like you. I grew up with those kids. If you think we didn't "play" interrogation for the majority of my childhood, you would be severely mistaken. These are not my first broken fingers or knife wounds inflicted to elicit information."

She saw surprise flicker through his eyes before it disappeared behind the mask of cruelty. The lack of oxygen was definitely screwing with her; she knew better than to reveal anything personal. Especially something that she had never told anyone else, not even Danielle. And now Auggie knew one of her deepest secrets. Everyone knew she had a crappy childhood: moving to a new base every six months to a year, never keeping any friends, etc. But nobody knew of the abuse she'd suffered at the hands of the other kids, and at the hands of some of the parents at the bases. They looked at it more like training for career military lives than torture. Some of the parents had even joined in, making suggestions for how to make the interrogation techniques more effective. Danielle had been spared because she was more girly than Annie, spending more of her time inside baking and playing dress up, while Annie was the tomboy climbing trees and sword fighting with tree branches. She hung out with the boys and got roped into all of their games, including "Interrogate the Terrorist." It made her sick to her stomach to remember. Why couldn't she have kept her mouth shut?

Just then, the scraping of metal against concrete announced a new presence in the room. Being tied to the chair, Annie couldn't see the newcomer, but the way Maksim straightened up told her it was someone above him in the food chain of this organization. She twisted her neck to try and get a better look, knowing this information could be incredibly valuable to the CIA. It was pointless. The placement of her chair meant she couldn't even see enough to make out a hair color or height.

No words were spoken. Apparently, Maksim's presence was requested outside of the room, as he abruptly stood and left. She heard the door scrape shut again.

"Auggie?"

No response.

"Auggie? Are you there?"

No response.

Maybe he actually had left her. Her stomach clenched with the thought of it even as her head knew it was for the best. She didn't want him hearing her go through this, but she selfishly wanted the comfort of his voice in her ear. He was always so good at keeping his voice calm and collected, even when she could hear the undercurrent of fear for her safety. His smooth, deliberate cadence always brought a warmth to her even as she was running and being shot at. She knew with Auggie on the line she would always make it home. Without him on the line, she felt doubt creep into her mind. And that sinking feeling in her stomach? That would be her abandonment issues rearing its ugly head. Every time she let someone in, let them get close to her, they would learn more about her and then leave. It happened with Ben, it happened with her boyfriend in sophomore year of college, it happened with every girl friend she made, and it happened with her mother. Of course, now that Auggie knew about her royally screwed up past, he was abandoning her, too. Not that she could blame him for it. She wouldn't want a friend that had this many problems, either.

She mentally shook herself from her self-pity party. If she was going to get out of this, she needed to figure out exactly how tightly she was tied, how bad her injuries were, and if there was another way out of this room. She tried pulling her wrists away from one another to no avail. She tried shifting her arms back and forth across the chair to see if there was any slack in the ropes at all. There wasn't. Apparently, Maksim was well-versed in the art of tying people up. Sighing, she turned her focus to her injuries.

She knew a rib was broken, and probably puncturing a lung, if her inability to breathe was any indication. However, she hadn't suffocated yet, and she hadn't started coughing up blood, so it couldn't have made it all the way through the lung wall, or she would be dead already. Maybe it was just pushing against the lung without actually tearing anything yet? Small miracles. She had one broken finger, and multiple gashes from the knife across her face and abdomen. She tilted her head to look down at her body, allowing her gaze to land on each one of the knife slashes. Seven across her torso and stomach, one long one down her right arm, and however many he had put across her face, she couldn't remember. Two or three maybe? With her head tilted down examining her wounds, the blood from the cut on her forehead rolled down her face and into her eye, bloodying her vision. Snapping her head back upright to avoid any more blood in her eyes made her remember the wound to the back of her head from being slammed against the floor, and the hit that knocked her out when she was initially taken. Who knew how bad those were? She wasn't sure if her inability to control the words coming out of her mouth was due to her lack of oxygen or the head wounds. Either way, she wasn't making it out of this room without help.

* * *

 **A/N: R &R please! I'd love to know your thoughts.**


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